Several patents of rearview mirror assemblies with an incorporated turn signal emitting said signal in three directions, forward, side and rear, are known such as ES 1019238 U; AR 247154 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,432 of the present inventor.
Patents are also known which make reference to the intermittent signals in a mirror reflector element or of indicators in the middle of the reflector mirror, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,284 (Muth), U.S. Pat. No. 7,427,150 (Gentex) that emit a light signal visible by the eyes of the driver, but even though they produce light emission for indirect vision and it is not aggressive to the eyes of the driver, the lighting of the mirror by the dichroic properties of the glass make it difficult, especially at night, to see the reflected image by overlapping image-light.
Subassemblies of associated mirror reflectors, that have an additional auxiliary spotter mirror fixed to the body, frame or the same main mirror to enlarge the field of view are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,156,532, U.S. 2010/0128373, U.S. Pat. No. 7,216,993; U.S. Pat. No. 6,979,092, U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,211, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,267,449.
DE10200503818 from AUDI discloses warning lights in response to an external sensor of a vehicle but said warning lights are located outside or next to the element of the reflector mirror, therefore, to focus the image, you must see before a first point of attention, the warning, and later a second or third different point of attention to analyze the images of both mirrors, this is distracting, it creates doubts and gives less time to look ahead.
One problem is that, when driving, the driver focuses his attention to the front, and when he needs to use the mirrors; the driver knows that, for a moment, he stops paying attention to the front. If the attention is diverted first by a warning indicator light and later by a second or third point of attention, to analyze two related images but of different sizes and orientations, as the ones that reflect a main mirror and an auxiliary spotter mirror, it increases the stress, the doubts and the risk of an accident because he is aware that the lack of attention to the front lasts longer.
Another problem when driving derives from the need to warn other vehicles about the movements of the own vehicle at the same time as receiving fast movement information from the nearby vehicles, which can be summarized as “to see and to be seen” in a simple and fast way, and said measures being effective both day and night.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,919,796 discloses a rearview mirror comprising a spotter mirror for providing an image of an object in a vehicle's blind zone to the vehicle's operator, including a recognition enhancement device with the spotter mirror for drawing the attention of the driver to the spotter mirror when an overtaking vehicle enters the driver's blind zone. However the provided solution is not operating properly under both daylight and in the frequent situations of external light changes during driving.
Also of interest appears to have a light illuminating the bodywork or side of the vehicle in order to allow avoiding obstacles when parking or when boarding the vehicle.